How Will Balancing Illuvial Tiers Work in OW Combat?

[keen crescent]

I'm curious how they're going to balance illuvial tiers with illuvial combat when you have a buddy illuvial out, and you can use a tier 1 axodon or a tier 4 seer. I love the look of axodon so I use him often, but being a tier 1 makes me wonder if he has any future in illuvial combat. I know in Arena they cost less points to place on the board, but how is that going to work in a monster hunter style of gameplay? I suppose this could extend to stage 1's. Will anyone ever use a rhamphy in illuvial combat when they have a rhamphyre?

A lot of the tier 1's and stage 1's look incredible so ideally I'd like to ensure they have usability in the OW, even if you have a stage 3 tier 3-5 to choose from in your inventory. Maybe it will be as simple as taking a performance hit to use your favourite illuvial if it falls under a lower tier, because mewtwo should be stronger than a tauros. Or maybe leveling up your favourite character to a point will help compensate (i.e. lvl 50 axodon vs lvl 40 seer).

[covert ivy]

Hi
i reckon like any other game you would use your strongest units

[cobalt flame]

Maybe you have certain points to use to form a team
You can take multiple lower units, or one big unit
So you take one rhamphyre or axodon, archie and carablu

[broken lake]

Maybe during combat, we have to start with the base stage Illuvial and build up a meter that, once a certain point is reached, you can trigger the evolution to stage 2 and so on. Devs would probably have to decide whether to make this evolution a "timed buff" or a semi-permanent buffed state; I can see either way working. Then when the fight is over, you're Illuvial goes back to stage 1.

I also don't see why base stats can't be normalized somewhat across the tiers. It's not like OW has to follow the exact same rules as Arena in terms of how the base stats and skills work. OW could very well do its own thing.

[keen crescent]

Doesn't that mean all tier 1's and likely tier 2's are going to be effectively useless and never used/seen in OW? Most people can find a tier 3 or 4 in a relatively short time, or buy it for cheap off the illuvidex. Seems like a bummer

[keen crescent]

I like that idea a lot

[covert ivy]

most people who cant find T3 or T4 can use lower tiers and work their way up

[broken lake]

At the very least, there should be niche use cases for lower tier Illuvials. I also don't like the idea of completely dumping lower tier Illuvials in order to have a team of just high tier Illuvials. Even in TCG and TFT games, there's often a balance of characters and cards supporting a carry or playstyle. For example, I never see a hearthstone deck with JUST high cost legendary cards. It usually has a mix of low cost and lower rarity cards too.

[covert ivy]

combat is not TCG or auto battler

sure there might be use case of lower tiers illuvials

[broken lake]

It's not, but we could still design a balanced system that can work in a similar way. Otherwise, it's such a waste to even have lower tier Illuvials.

[covert ivy]

balance a T1 to be as useful as a T5?

it shouldnt be balanced that way, i mean we are using a Tier system.

Think about palworld, why would you use the starter sheep pal to fight legendaries?

[broken lake]

Not what I'm suggesting at all. Balanced in that you shouldn't need to be stacking a combat team with JUST T5 Illuvials to get the most benefit.

[covert ivy]

Well yea the affinity and class still applies